Would it be possible for an intelligent species to develop an advanced technological civilisation without the wheel?
Pat French
Longdon-upon-Tern, Shropshire, UK
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The development of advanced technology without the wheel would rely upon so many different things, starting with a definition of “advanced technology”. What sort of intelligent organism, inhabiting what kind of world, would be seeking what kind of technological solutions? Does a fish need a bicycle?
The only technology we understand is that of our own species, which may or may not be “advanced”. We have reached our current technological level at the end of a long timeline. Our technology started with the tools of the hunter-gatherer and spent a long time developing alongside agriculture, architecture and warfare before eventually reaching centralised manufacturing within cities. Only comparatively recently has technology involved electrics, electronics and digital devices. At every stage, our technologies were considered to be advanced.
Without inventing the wheel, we would need rockets to power aircraft, so rocket technology would develop quickly
Generating transmitted energy from wind, water, steam, fossil fuel and nuclear sources all requires rotation at some point. If these power sources are essential to deliver technological solutions, then the concept of the wheel would also seem essential.
Machinery for the manufacture of our technological hardware uses wheels to redirect, utilise and store energy as well as for transport. It is hard to imagine a species developing far into a mass manufacturing age without developing the wheel. Given so many mechanical examples, its usefulness for overland transport would surely be obvious long before industry developed an electric technology.
Alex McDowell
London, UK
It certainly would be possible and may help such a society to develop space travel quicker!
Without the wheel, we would need rockets to power aircraft. Hence rocket technology – which is essential for space travel – would develop rapidly.
Roads could have a slippery surface upon which rocket-powered sledges could run. Ramjets would be developed too. Runways could also have slippery surfaces on which aircraft with skis could land and take off or seaplanes could be used. Maglev trains would be developed more quickly as well.
The wheel is found in most engines, but it isn’t essential. Early steam engines, which mainly drove pumps, lacked wheels. Internal combustion engines with parts that only move forwards and backwards, known as reciprocation, would be feasible and it would be easy to produce electricity by using reciprocating magnets inside coils.
Screw threads would be hard to produce without lathes, so such a society would have to rely on nails and rivets as fasteners. It would be impossible to drill holes in thick metal objects, so they would have to be in the original casting.
Many people think that the rocks for Stonehenge and the pyramids were pulled on sledges by humans or animals.
Atlant Schmidt
Nashua, New Hampshire, US
It is virtually inconceivable that a civilisation could become technologically advanced without employing the wheel. This basic machine is fundamental to so many other technological advances. And it is an obvious invention or discovery, as anyone who has ever slipped on an acorn or a round stick can attest.
On the other hand, it is possible that a species can be intelligent without possessing the wheel. Our own planet’s aquatic mammals may eventually attest to that.
Hillary Shaw
Newport, Shropshire, UK
The Aztecs used no wheels because they lived in a mountainous area where llamas or humans were better at transporting things. However, they did have wheeled toys.
Suppose they had good local access to many minerals, were isolated and safe from conquest, and had developed a simple character alphabet and the Gutenberg press (this printing press made cheaper books widely available and arguably kicked off advances in schooling and many technologies).
On this basis, the Aztecs could have developed chemistry, physics and biology. They could have discovered electricity and invented solar panels for energy and magnetic levitation-type transport. They could have developed explosives and maybe the hydrogen bomb, and gone on to conquer the Americas and beyond. Rockets and spacecraft need no wheels.
But once they overran flatter areas where people did use wheels, they are likely to have seen their efficiency and adopted the technology of the colonised.
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